David Miliband’s criminal denial of Human Rights to ChagossiansPosted on March 23rd, 2010

Ajit Randeniya

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband is “ƒ”¹…”outstanding’ in a number of ways: he is noted for his impetuous personality; idiotic utterances about his “ƒ”¹…”concern for Human Rights globally’; and his unrealistic (though not improbable!) ambition to become next Prime Minister of Britain.

What is less well known perhaps is that he, similar to Jack Straw, Peter Mandehlson and Tony Blair, is one of the most committed Zionists among British politicians. Miliband’s forceful interventionist stance on international affairs is more to do with the global Zionist agenda, than to do with his duties as British Foreign Secretary.

The reader is requested to form the mental image of standing at the Galle Face Green, facing the Galle Face Hotel, in preparation to be imbued by the following unbelievable story of the Chagossian people (people of the Chagos islands), and David Miliband’s sinister complicity in continuing the genocidal crime involving them.

If you raise your right hand now ,at an angle of around 45 degrees, roughly around 1,600 km (1,000 miles) in that direction, past the Maldives Islands, is a group of islands referred to as the “ƒ”¹…”Chagos Archipelago: they are our neighbours. There are 65 islands including Diego Garcia, the largest of the islands. The Chagos Archipelago, like much of the world outside Europe, was ravaged by them between the 15th and 20th centuries; the Chagos Archipelago was captured by the French in 1700 until the British captured them when Napoleon fell in 1814.

The story of these islands and their original inhabitants goes to expose the absolute hypocrisy, dishonesty and criminality behind the British and US led deceitful global campaign of their concern for Human Rights: nearly half a century following the supposed “ƒ”¹…”decolonisation’, the original inhabitants of these islands, dispossessed and rendered state-less by the British and the US, remain refugees in Mauritius and Seashells, waiting for justice while these moral policemen are preaching to the rest of the world. Not only that: they are doing everything possible to deny them justice and Human Rights!

The Chagossians’ story begins with one of the most flagrant violations of UN Resolutions committed by the British in 1965; Resolution 1514 of 1960 which prohibited administering powers “ƒ”¹…”dismembering’ territory prior to granting independence colonies.

In short, the British stole the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius prior to granting independence in 1968, renaming it the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) through an illegal instrument called the “ƒ”¹…”BIOT Order’ issued by the Queen of England. As the world later learnt, the “ƒ”¹…”excision’, as they called it, was part of a wider conspiracy to hand over global power to the new coloniser, the United States of America, by assisting it consolidate its global reach.

The US at the time was at the last, loosing stages of the Vietnam War, searching for suitable locations in the Indian Ocean for a base. They had initially targeted the island of Aldabra of the Chagos Archipelago, further to the West of Diego Garcia, and inhabited by a rare species of tortoise. The presence of the rare tortoise saved Aldabra; the Americans did not want to attract world attention by triggering a possible confrontation with publicity savvy environmental activists.

A US government associated criminal gang referred to as the Long-Range Objectives Group headed by a criminal named Stu Barber decided that Diego Garcia was ideal location for a base due it being “ƒ”¹…”within striking distance of potential conflict zones,’ of Asia and the Persian Gulf.

In the next step of this story, the then British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson “ƒ”¹…”handed over’ Diego Garcia to the then US President Lyndon Johnson through a secret lease of the island until 2016, with the option of extending by a further 20 years. The Mauritians had never been told at the time of excision that the islands would be handed over to the US for establishing a military outpost!

As part of the deal, the British were also told by the US that they were to be responsible for leaving the islands under exclusive US control, “ƒ”¹…”pristinely empty of human habitation’: US was keen to avoid any responsibility for the expulsion, or face UN questions on the violation of the indigenous peoples’ rights of self-determination.

To meet with this requirement, the Chagos population was systematically moved away, and effectively dumped on the Seychelles and Mauritius by the British. The Nixon administration referred to the displaced population as “ƒ”¹…”a small number of contract laborers from the Seychelles and Mauritius’. The Chagossians became refugees and the Diego Garcia Island base was branded “ƒ”¹…”Footprint of Freedom’!

Initially used as a communications outpost, Diego Garcia currently serves as one of the most significant US military, air force, and naval installations in the world, due mainly to the Zionist aim of gaining increased control over the Gulf through military force; Diego Garcia was used in bombing missions during the 1991 Gulf War, 2001 Afghanistan invasion, and the initial GPS guided aerial bombardment during the 2003 Iraqi invasion.

It has also been used as a prison and torture camp of “ƒ”¹…”terrorism suspects’: the retired US General Barry McCaffrey listed Diego Garcia alongside GuantƒÆ’†’¡namo and Bagram amongst US detention facilities outside the US, apparently unaware that the information was controversial! According to the Council of Europe it was also used by the CIA for the “ƒ”¹…”extraordinary rendition’ (torture) of prisoners.

David Miliband, having first lied to the British House of Commons about the use of Diego Garcia for torture, later had to admit that “ƒ”¹…”a US clerical error had prevented the truth from emerging earlier’!

The importance of Diego Garcia to the US hegemony was highlighted by military expert John Pike: “ƒ”¹…”Even if the entire Eastern Hemisphere has drop-kicked the US from every other base on their territory, the US military’s goal is to be able “ƒ”¹…”to run the planet from Guam and Diego Garcia by 2015.’ Right at this moment, there are reports that the US administration is bringing in 347 “ƒ”¹…”bunker buster’ bombs from California to Diego Garcia, at the request of Israel, in preparation for an attack on Iran.

So it is likely that David Miliband, as the British Zionist agent will do everything possible to prevent ever having to hand over Diego Garcia back to its legal owners. The development of the Chagossians’ battle and the latest reaction by Miliband supports such a supposition.

Since their expulsion the Chagossians have continually asserted their right to return to Diego Garcia; the history of their battle through the so-called British legal and justice system is another, separate but continuing story of deception.

The amiable leader of the Chagos Refugee Association, Olivier Bancoult, sought a judicial review of the April 1971 Immigration Ordinance which “ƒ”¹…”banned’ anyone visiting the BIOT without a British-granted permit. The British High Court adjudged in November 2000 that ordinance to be unlawful. The then Foreign Secretary, the late Robin Cook (one of the rare cases of an honourable British politician) accepted that judgment and amended the BIOT constitution to allow the Chagossians to visit the territory, except Diego Garcia.

Four years later on election day 2004 however, in one of the most disgraceful sleight of hand typical of the regime of deception that governs the British-US Zionist controlled relationship, the then Foreign Secretary Jack Straw announced that the Queen had negated the High Court decision of 2000 through two “ƒ”¹…”Orders in Council’. The ‘cleverness’ of the conspiracy lied in the fact that “ƒ”¹…”Orders in Council’ did not have to be put before Parliament.

In 2006 the High Court quashed the “ƒ”¹…”Orders’ and Jack Straw appealed. In 2007, the Master of the Rolls upheld the High Court judgment on the grounds that the Orders in Council were an abuse of power, repugnant, irrational and unlawful. Leave to appeal was refused.

Straw would not give up! He petitioned the House of Lords and in October 2008, in another “ƒ”¹…”dirty trick’, three of the five “ƒ”¹…”Law Lords’ held that the Orders were valid “ƒ”¹…”because the right of abode may lawfully be displaced for the time being in the interests of defence’! In an astonishing legal enunciation, one of the Lords, Hoffmann, dismissed the very notion of a fundamental right to abode in the place of one’s birth: “ƒ”¹…”The law gives it and the law may take it away,’ he said!

In a further High Court ruling, the Chagossians also lost their appeal for compensation. Lord Justice Sedley ruled that in legal terms their claims were ‘unsustainable’ in law and were brought outside the time limit for launching legal proceedings. However in his summing up Lord Justice Sedley described the treatment to which the islanders were subjected as ‘shameful’.

Now the Chaggosians are before the European Court of Human Rights, alleging breaches of the European Convention on Human Rights. The British are arguing that the European Convention on Human Rights does not apply to Diego Garcia “ƒ”¹…”because there is no settled population’!

So much for the British concern about the universal values of Truth, Justice and Freedom!

More than 10000 Chagos islanders and their children still live in Mauritius and the Seychelles. In a classic case of “ƒ”¹…”divide and rule’ strategy, Miliband has managed to entice a “ƒ”¹…”compliant’ group of around 2,000, led by a young and gullible Allen Vincatassin of the “ƒ”¹…”Diego Garcian Society’ to move to the UK. They live in Crawley, close to Gatwick airport, with the hope of going home soon!

The islanders’ case was taken up in the British Parliament by two honourable men, the late Robin Cook and Tam Dalyell, who retired at the 2005 election. Cook and Dalyell showed enormous support for the principle of justice for the islanders and for the suffering that they had been through. Currently, Jeremy Corbyn, Labour MP for Islington North is battling hard for them.

But our “ƒ”¹…”champion of global Human Rights’, David Miliband has added to the list of disgraceful British dirty tricks on the Chagossians: fearing an adverse finding by the European Court, Miliband has suggested that a “ƒ”¹…”Marine Park’ be established in the region, barring the islanders from their homeland, but noting that “ƒ”¹…”it may be necessary to consider the exclusion of Diego Garcia and its territorial waters from the protected area.’

To support this conspiracy, Miliband has created a British environment grouping named the “ƒ”¹…”Chagos Environment Network’ (CEN), who demand that: “ƒ”¹…”The public and the scientific community have spoken, and now it is up to the government to secure the UK’s ocean legacy’; eco-imperialism is at full swing, with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) also endorsing the plan, despite angry dissent from its own legal advisers.

The British Foreign Office “consulted” on the establishment of a marine protected area covering the Chagos archipelago, over the last three months, ending on March 8. Miliband is currently “ƒ”¹…”examining the cases for and against the reserve’ and a decision is expected within weeks. He sounds convinced. “This is a remarkable opportunity for the UK to create one of the world’s largest marine protected areas, and double the global coverage of the world’s oceans benefiting from full protection,” he wrote.

One of the world’s foremost experts on reef conservation, Dr Mark Spalding noted that: “ƒ”¹…”Even if I didn’t care about human rights, I would say this is a terrible mistake’. Peter Sand, a British environmental lawyer who has investigated the US base’s impact on the reef, has documented four jet fuel spills totalling 1.3 million gallons since it was built and has lobbied unsuccessfully for information on radiation leakage from nuclear-powered vessels there. “To say that a small group of Chagossians could have a greater impact than the base is just crazy,” Dr Spalding said.

Notwithstanding the obvious lack of legal or moral right to declare such a Marine Park unilaterally, Britain and the US have been claiming jurisdiction far beyond their national territorial waters under the noble pretext of nature conservation.

In September 2003 Tony Blair proclaimed a 200-mile “ƒ”¹…”environment protection and preservation zone’ in the Chagos Archipelago; in June 2006 and January 2009 President Bush (the idiot) proclaimed several even larger “ƒ”¹…”national marine monuments’ around US atolls in the Pacific Ocean. All new “ƒ”¹…”green’ ocean reserves happened to enclose or adjoin some strategically important military bases – such as Guam, Wake, Johnston and Midway in the Pacific, and now Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

The Prime Minister of Mauritius, Navin Chandra Ramgoolam, exposed the hypocrisy involved in this particular pronouncement when he said: “the British claim to protect marine fauna and flora when they insist on denying Chagos-born Mauritians the right to return to their islands all the while”.

“The British had refused to create a base on Aldabra in the Seychelles not to harm its tortoise population,” marvelled Olivier Bancoult, head of the Chagos Refugees Group. “Now they are trying to create a protected area to prevent Chagossians from returning to their native islands.”

When will the Sri Lankans who take their cue on Human Rights from thieves like David Miliband learn?

Leave a Reply

Disclaimer: The comments contained within this website are personal reflection only and do not necessarily reflect the views of the LankaWeb. LankaWeb.com offers the contents of this website without charge, but does not necessarily endorse the views and opinions expressed within. Neither the LankaWeb nor the individual authors of any material on this Web site accept responsibility for any loss or damage, however caused (including through negligence), which you may directly or indirectly suffer arising out of your use of or reliance on information contained on or accessed through this Web site.
All views and opinions presented in this article are solely those of the surfer and do not necessarily represent those of LankaWeb.com.

This entry was posted
on Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can skip to the end and leave a response.